


Sing Freedom!

by AislingSiobhan



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, AU Budapest!, AU Thor 2, AU WW2, Allfamily, Alternate MCU endings, Asgard, Asgardians - Freeform, Assassin Natasha, Bad Loki, Character Death, Drabble Collection, Each chapter is INDIVIDUALLY tagged, F/M, Free From Freedom, Frost Giants - Freeform, Gen, Good Loki, Good Tony, Homelessness, If I miss something here, Laufey v Odin, M/M, Nazi America, Occassionally I fuck up the ending of MCU movies to make these fit, Other Giants, Political killings, Pregnancy, Ragnarok, Red Room, SHIELD agents - Freeform, Thor: The Dark World, Vigilante Justice, Villain Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:54:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AislingSiobhan/pseuds/AislingSiobhan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles based on the ‘Sing Freedom’ poetry anthology by Judith Nicholls. Each chapter includes individual warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Angry Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Character Death. Evil Tony. Vigilante Justice. AU IM1. Gen.

This will be a collection of drabbles based on the ‘Sing Freedom’ poetry anthology by Judith Nicholls and Amnesty International from 1991. In no particular order. Warnings are subject to change and will be added to as I go along (and when I remember). 

**“Sing Freedom!”**

**Disclaimer:** The Avengers, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don’t sue.  
 **Summary:** A collection of drabbles based on the ‘Sing Freedom’ poetry anthology by Judith Nicholls. Each chapter includes individual warnings.  
 **Warnings:** Slash. Clint  & Natasha. Loki/Tony Stark. Thor/Jane. Asgard. Red Room. Character Death. Good Tony. Evil Tony. Pregnancy. AU. Altered events of the MCU. Ragnarok. Laufey v Odin.  
 **Rating:** NC-17 to be safe.  
 **A/N:** This will be a collection of drabbles based on the ‘Sing Freedom’ poetry anthology by Judith Nicholls and Amnesty International from 1991. In no particular order. Warnings are subject to change. 

_XXX_

**Warnings** : Character Death. Evil Tony. Vigilante Justice. AU IM1. Gen.  
 **Words:** 324  
 **Chapter 1: The Angry Man**  
A man of wrath, a man of war,  
A man who truculently bore  
Over his shoulder, like a lance,  
A banner labeled “Tolerance.”  
Lady, like this, and in this manner,  
I lay about me with my banner  
Till they cry mercy, ma’am.” His blows  
Rained proudly on prospective foes. (Phyllis McGinley)

Tony had always been different. But after Afghanistan, those differences were something else entirely. He still drank and partied and drove fast cars, but now he also built metal suits that he named the Iron Legion. Pepper had tried to talk to him about it, had tried to encourage him to seek some sort of therapy, but Tony had apparently taken on the weight of the world as his burden to bear. 

It had been easy to convince Obadiah they needed to build better weapons, stronger weapons. Tony made more Jerichos, and he used them against the Ten Rings. Civilians and militants alike burned in the aftermath of Tony Stark’s war on terror. Children screamed as his Iron Legion shot at them from the sky, unable to differentiate between good and bad, while Obadiah raked in the profits. Until Tony sent the Legion for him, marching two at a time through the streets of Miami until they knocked on Stane’s door and launched a mini-missile at his face when he answered. 

Betrayal would not be tolerated. Obadiah had tried to kill him once already; Tony would not give him a second opportunity. 

Pepper quit Stark Industries. Tony let her go, his fondness for her all that stayed the gauntlet of the Mark III as it prepared to fire at her retreating back. 

Rhodey picked a fight with him, a long time ago, stealing one of Tony’s suits, tackling him out of the sky wearing the armour and driving him into the ocean. They grappled, until Tony went limp and Rhodey relaxed his grip. Tony was Iron Man and the Legion was him also. The suit betrayed Rhodey in favour of their master, sinking to the ocean floor the moment Rhodes had let Tony go, wires short circuiting and metal heavy, a silent witness as he drowned. Tony never retrieved the body. Instead he built more weapons, added to his Legion. 

He privatised world peace. 

**XXX**


	2. In The Hotel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. Assassin Natasha. Marvel Universe. Character Death. Tony/Natasha. Het. Clint & Natasha.

**Warnings:** AU. Assassin Natasha. Marvel Universe. Character Death. Tony/Natasha. Het. Clint  & Natasha.  
 **Words:** 764  
 **In the Hotel**  
Even when talking, it is not possible  
To tear your troubled gaze away  
From that intricate pattern – if you look  
Hard, you might see something.  
I back off, narrow my eyes.  
I do not open the door.  
After all, I have been raised  
In a different literature. (Aleksandr Kushner)

 

His mission was to get close to her and then eliminate her. 

He hadn't counted on her wanting to get close to someone else. 

Clint watched his target leave the room on the arm of Tony Stark. The man she had arrived with, having already been recognised as Boris Turgenov by the SHIELD agent, was across the room, his sights set on Ivan Vanko. Stark Industries' newest engineer was blissfully unaware of the danger to his person, and so was the company's owner. Stark was laughing, smiling honestly, in a way that Clint had never seen him smile before, as the red head whispered into his ear. 

She knew how to do her job, Clint mused as he eyed them until they disappeared from sight. 

But maybe she wasn't working, he thought, as he followed them, eyes cataloging where each of their hands were and the way 'Natalie' was looking at the billionaire. Her eyes were wide, mouth smiling and she was leaning into his touch, seeking it out in fact, in a way that Clint had never noticed before. And he had been watching Ms Ronanova for a long, long time. She was a difficult woman to find and he had used that time to study her, to learn her, because as much as his boss said she was the bad guy, Clint looked at her and saw himself looking back. She was like him, broken and bruised but still standing tall, and she deserved better than the KGB and the Red Room and the shitty hand life had dealt her. She certainly, he thought jealously as the couple ducked into Stark's hotel room, deserved better than Tony. 

But he didn't exactly deserve her either, crouching outside the door and staring through the key hole, thanking his lucky stars that the hotel was one of those old fashioned ones, because it was so much harder to spy on his targets in the electronic key-card variety hotels. He had been sent here to kill her, and the last time he had met, Clint had let her go after kissing her. She had watched him, narrow-eyed as he ducked around the corner quickly instead of towards her where she had waited with her arms raised and her legs spread to pounce. But she hadn't followed him as he ran from her, as he let her run from him. 

However, now, he waited outside the hotel room door, listening to the sounds that filtered back out to him: moans and pants, and pleas for more, the slap of skin against skin and the hoarse cries of orgasm. The headboard kept banging against the wall, and each time it made Clint flinch, but he kept his pistol tucked into the waist band of his SHIELD-issued trousers and the sniper rifle in-assembled in the business man's briefcase he had bought to match the suit jacket he wore. He didn't want to kill her, not his Natasha whose smile stayed with him when he couldn't see her, whose eyes burned through him every time they chanced paths. The kiss, from Budapest with love on his part, was something that he couldn't forget and he reasoned with himself that there was no need to kill her, because she wasn't hurting Stark. She wasn't hurting anyone but him, actually, and that was more of an emotional hurt than the perpetration of a murder sort that he was supposed to be preventing. 

He thought about walking in. Of shouldering the door open and waving his pistol around until Natasha climbed off Stark's dick and followed him to a holding cell, where he could look at her whenever he wanted. With the exception of the Director, he'd have her all to himself then. But he thought about opening the door, and thought about what he might see once he did, and he decided not to. Picturing her with Stark was hard enough, hearing her scream his name as she trembled for him made his hands clenched at his sides; he didn't want to have to see it too. 

So he left the door closed. And he left them there. 

In the morning, one of the cleaning staff found Ivan Vanko's body hanging from the ceiling fixture in his own hotel room down the hall, courtesy of the second Crimson Dynamo. Another found Tony Stark where Natasha had left him, naked and tied to the bed, having suffered, quite literally, le petite mort. 

They didn't call her the Black Widow for nothing, Clint supposed, watching Stark's casket as it was lowered into the ground.

**XXX**


	3. When the Sun Rises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pregnancy. Jane/Thor. Jealous Sif. Allfamily. Mortal Jane. AU Thor 2.

Thanks to everyone who has commented or kudos'd so far :) 

**Warnings:** Pregnancy. Jane/Thor. Jealous Sif. Allfamily. Mortal Jane. AU Thor 2.   
**Words:** 951  
 **Chapter 3: When the Sun Rises**  
I share creation,   
Kings can do no more (Anon, Chinese: 2500 BC)

The day Odin had decreed Jane undergo the Trials, she had collapsed. Eir had been sent for, and Eir had hurried to Jane's side, mindful of the storm that was raging over Asgard. Thor had been furious: had accused the handmaidens of tightening her dress too much; had insisted that she must have been poisoned by the cook, despite his friends’ attempts to reason with him. 

Volstagg had calmly said that perhaps Jane was simply exhausted, or stressed; she was only mortal after all. 

“If she were one of us, you would not have to worry so for such foolish reasons,” Sif had sneered, turning her back on them. She waited until they had started towards the healing rooms before following, too curious to allow her jealousy to keep her away. 

If any of them were stressed, it was Thor. After Loki’s death and Odin’s lapse into the Odinsleep, and Frigga forced into a healing coma – her funeral a ploy to fool Malekith into thinking Asgard in mourning, weak and vulnerable, while Thor snuck the Aether back to Svartalfheimr – it had fallen to Thor to take the throne. Despite his hopes to join Jane for the duration of her lifetime upon Midgard, he had taken the crown and the throne and the mantle of King. When Odin woke again, while he was still sleepy and malleable, Thor had begged to keep Jane in Asgard with him. 

She had come when he had arrived to claim her, pleased to see where he had grown up properly, relieved to even be near him again. He loved her, as foolish as his friends thought it after knowing her for so little a time with all of that time in between to wonder if he would ever see her again. He loved her because he had been made to do so; he could feel it in his bones every time he looked at her, that rightness, the belonging, and she felt it too. She must have, or she would not have come with him so easily. A handful of clothing rolled into a ball and shoved into a bag, followed by a loud cry of ‘oh, these’ and her arms were gathering an assortment of mechanical devices, cradling them like newborn babies as Thor gathered her against his chest. 

Jane was not stressed or ill. She had been getting sick a little, Thor admitted under Eir’s narrow-eyed stare, and she was tired. But she had never collapsed before, he insisted. They had married the moment Frigga was well enough to leave her chambers, her lungs aching but her legs working so she insisted that she was fine. The Trials had been to follow, but Eir only laughed when Fandral joked at the now-woken Jane of her attempts to avoid them. 

“She will not be undergoing the Trials for some time, I’m afraid,” she told her king. She offered Jane a warm smile, ignoring Thor’s immediate fretting. “Congratulations, my Queen. You are with child.”

_XXX_

All of Asgard had celebrated the pregnancy, regularly, loudly and repeatedly. A child so early into a marriage was practically a miracle on a planet where they lived for half a millennium and could only boast of one or two children to a family. Some said it was because she was mortal, that Jane had conceived so rapidly. 

Other said it was because she was mortal that the child made her so ill. She was bedridden for the last three months of the pregnancy, her small frame easily over balanced by the extra weight of her belly, and her thin ankles aching with every step she took since she begun to show. 

But it was Sif, standing at her bedside once Jane had tidied up her hair and wiped the sweat off of her face, eyes ringed by exhaustion and hands still shaking from her labour, who dared to say so to their faces. She gazed down at the child, small for an Asgardian child but had – from the noises emanating from the room earlier that day – caused his mother a great amount of pain with his size nonetheless. Her hair hung over her shoulder, dark and heavy, a reminder of the last child who was smaller than all others that had roamed the palace: a prince too, and nothing but trouble. She snorted as Thor boasted, and he turned to her with his mouth open, but silent, as if he couldn’t make himself ask out loud what she thought was wrong with his son. 

“He would not have been so small if you were one of us,” she told Jane crossly, scolding her for something beyond the brunette’s control. “Such a shame that he will never be a true god, my friend.” She gave Thor a consolatory pat on the shoulder, as she shook her head sadly towards Jane. 

The mortal in question glared at her, brown eyes narrowed and mouth turned down. She hadn’t been blind to Sif’s jealousy, but for the sake of Thor’s friendship with her Jane had tried to ignore it. Sif hadn’t actually done anything, other than make comments about Jane’s unworthiness; she had heard the same for half her life growing up and even working, a woman in a man’s field. Her skin was thicker than people gave her credit for. So she smiled, and she gave a soft laugh as she gazed at her son, eyes switching from irritated to loving in an instant. 

“He is sort of small, isn’t he?” Jane asked Thor, smiling when her husband hesitated to answer. “Anyway,” she added flippantly, half smug as Sif started frowning, “I just created life. I’m more of a God than you are.”

**XXX**


	4. Britons Shall Never Be Slaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU Captain America. Homelessness. One-sided Steve/Peggy. Howard Stark. Post-WW2.

**Warnings:** AU Captain America. Homelessness. One-sided Steve/Peggy. Howard Stark. Post-WW2.   
**Words:** 943  
 **Chapter 4: Britons Shall Never Be Slaves**  
A teenager before the   
Word is born, the Army claims  
Him for the country’s fight for  
Freedom.   
But Englishmen of Henry’s  
Station  
Unprivileged, no decent  
Education, find themselves  
Ditched by a freedom loving  
Nation. (Helen Heslop)

Steve had landed the plane because he had wanted to save people. He hadn’t cared at the time that he might die doing so – ok, he cared, but it had been for the greater good and who was he to scoff at that? And after, when he had climbed unharmed from the wreckage, the Tesseract and the plane lost to the rapidly cracking ice that hid a lake, the soldiers had welcomed him home. 

Steve fought in the war because he had wanted to help, wanted to do his part to defeat Hitler and the Nazis and save people from them. But after the war was done, there was no longer a place for him in the Army. Captain America had been needed on the front lines – in movies and comic books, on posters and lunch boxes – morale for the real fighting troops. The world didn’t need Captain America in an office, behind a desk like the one they forced Peggy to sit at going week after week without a mission because Steve’s face was too recognizable. They tried to find him something else, anything else, but everyone could still remember the last famous guy that liked to paint and how he had tried to conquer the world and the world was unnecessarily wary of Steve. 

He lived with Peggy for a little while, unable to bring himself to move into Bucky’s vacant flat, and his own long ago rented out to another single guy living in the bad part of town. Though Steve loved her, would always love her, without the war they had nothing in common and she stopped loving him. Once she had told him, it became too awkward to live with her, kipping on her sofa that was much too short for him but too much of a gentleman to ask her to swap or share the bed with him. He told her he had somewhere to go, and he went there, to the stoop of the furthest soup kitchen from Peggy and he curled up there to wait.

He wouldn’t freeze to death, the serum made sure of that, but he was always so hungry. He worked his way from this soup kitchen, to the next and the next, and to that place that gave out canned food on a Tuesday, and the one that let you sit inside beside the radiator for an hour or two if he helped them set up the beds for that night. Other people needed the beds more than him though, other people actually would freeze to death when the snow came, so Steve always left when he was done, stopping at the café that was directly in sight of Peggy’s living room window and ordering a cup of coffee with the few cents the woman who ran the shelter always gave him. 

Peggy could see him when she came home from work, and sometimes she waved and smiled and Steve waved back, but she was always unaware of where he spent his days and nights. Steve allowed her the illusion, that his days passed with him sketching in his battered note book at the fancy café that he used to buy her dinner and wine from, that he wasn’t cold and wasn’t hungry and wasn’t homeless, because she shouldn’t feel bad for not wanting to live with him anymore. 

He applied for all sorts of jobs, but always got the same response. “Sorry…” “Thanks for…” “Not qualified.” So he took a job as a cleaner, because when he worked at the gym the customers couldn’t afford to pay their fees and there was no need then for staff. He broke the mop twice by accident, grip too tight and frustration eating at him, and all of his money went on food because Steve’s metabolism was so high or to pay for replacement equipment because he couldn’t control his own strength. He didn’t have any money left over for rent. Or new clothes. 

It was Howard Stark who found him almost two years after the end of the war, unrecognizable with his beard and threadbare rags and the smell that made people cross the road to avoid his huddle of cardboard and plastic bags. 

“Peggy said you had gone missing. She was worried,” Howard said, lighting up a cigar only so he could breathe in the scent of the smoke instead. “Why didn’t you tell someone, Steve?”

“Who would I have told? No one cares about someone who isn’t useful anymore.” The only companies who had offered him a job, back during the first month after leaving Peggy’s home, were researchers, scientists, biologists who wanted to study him, lock him up and poke at him until the figured out the secret swimming in his blood. 

“We care.” Howard jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the black sedan, engine ticking softly as it waited by the curbside. “Though, I might have to put you in the boot for the drive home.” He waited for Steve to smile, but the soldier didn’t. Instead, he glanced up with wary eyes, face lined from exhaustion and hunger, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “We’ve been looking for you. Never thought you’d hide out in Harlem though.” Howard didn’t wait for a response, just reached out to grab Steve’s arm and drag him up off of the ground. 

Steve let him, but pulled his arm out of reach the moment he was upright. “You’ll dirty your suit,” he warned, sadly. 

Howard’s lips quirked a little. “I’m more worried about the upholstery,” he said, nodding at the car, “but it’s a price I’m willing to pay.” 

**XXX**


	5. Homage to a Government

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nazi America. POW. Red Skull. Hydra. Assassin Natasha. Bucky Barnes didn't become the Winter Soldier. WW2 AU.

**Warnings:** Nazi America. POW. Red Skull. Hydra. Assassin Natasha. Bucky Barnes didn't become the Winter Soldier. WW2 AU.  
 **Words:** 648  
 **Chapter 5: Homage to a Government**  
Next year we shall be living in a country  
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.   
The statues will be standing in the same  
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.   
Our children will not know it’s a different country.   
All we can hope to leave them now is money. (Philip Larkin)

The Howling Commandos never got to meet Captain America. 

Captain America didn't get to do much for the war effort other than tour and give speeches while girls danced in the background.

James Barnes was just about finished getting dressed when the telegraph arrived, calling them all home. 

A lack of funds, they were told. Cost saving, you know how it is during war time. Their government had decided to pull out their troops, to focus their spending on the mass production of weapons. Howard Stark made a killing off of that; enough, that when the Germans came he could afford to pay them off, to keep his big fancy house and his non-conformist attitude and live in peace with a little less money than he had before. 

But all of the regular folks couldn't do that. 

When the Germans came, the civilians hid in their houses, trembling before their radios as news spread of the Allied surrender. The ex-soldiers, the ones who were out of a job because planes and bombs were meant to be winning the war for them, were marched out into the street, hands over their heads and fingers laced together. Steve wasn't with them, because even though he was Captain America, he wasn't actually a captain of anything, let alone in the army. But Bucky was. Bucky was his best friend, his brother really, and a Lieutenant. Steve watched from behind the rows of Nazi soldiers who lined the streets like barricades, guns at the ready in case of trouble. The Howling Commandos were spread out in the dirt, blood staining the ground around them, mouths open, eyes open and still. Steve didn't recognize them, he hadn't had the chance to know them. Unfortunately, he knew Bucky, and when James Barnes' name was called out and he was marched away from the line of defenceless men and into the wide-open space left between them and the Nazis, Steve could only watch. 

He watched as one man raised his gun, the banner around his arm dull already from the spattered blood of his other victims, as red as the swastika it covered. The German's eyes were bright blue, unnaturally so, and Steve glanced around until he caught sight of the familiar face of Johann Schmidt, the Tesseract held between both of his hands. He looked so normal, so human with his mask pulled down over his hideous face, the red of his true skin hidden from sight.

Steve watched as the gun was aimed, he watched the Red Skull's lips curve up in amusement. He heard the gun fired, because it wasn't something that he could physically see not even with his enhanced eyesight, but he could see Bucky slump to the ground, keeling over sideways with a tiny little hole at the centre of his forehead. He couldn't make himself watched the blood trickle down, or watch it pool on the ground, but the smell of it made him nauseous, mingled with the fear and the horror of the soldiers and civilians alike. 

He thought about fighting back, thought about throwing himself forward and tackling Schmidt to the ground, but what would that achieve? The Nazis were everywhere in Europe now, other than Briton or so he had heard (because Hitler was fond of them and there was nothing there to capture the attention of Hydra... yet). It would get him killed, even while it made him feel useful, less defeated. But then it would be his blood staining the ground, his eyes that stared vacantly at the overcast sky, and his body that would be thrown into an unmarked shallow grave, with only the words of his government to help him rest in peace: We are to bring the soldiers home for lack of money, and it is all right. 

It wasn't. And their government was no longer here to see that.

**XXX**


	6. Paper Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony/Loki. Mortal!Loki. Odin’s A+ parenting. Character death. Drabble.

**Warnings:** Tony/Loki. Mortal!Loki. Odin’s A+ parenting. Character death. Drabble.   
**Words:** 362  
 **Chapter 6: Paper Soldier**  
You would mistrust him and deny   
your secrets and your favour.   
Why should you do it, really, why?   
Cause he was made of paper. 

He dreads the fire? Not at all!   
One day he cut a caper   
and died for nothing; after all,   
he was a piece of paper.

He would be happy in fire and smoke  
to die for you twice over,  
but you fussed over him and spoke:  
‘You are a paper soldier’.  
…Well go, well off you go,

and he walked off the bolder,   
And then he burnt in a puff and blow,  
he was a paper soldier.   
(Bulat Okudzhava)  
Ballad of the Paper Soldier.

Tony should have seen it coming. 

Tony should have known it would happen; should have done something to stop it. 

After centuries spent on Asgard, being over-looked, unaccepted and thought weak, Tony should have known that Loki would have wanted to prove himself, now of all times. Stripped of his powers as punishment and banished to Earth, the ex-God had just been waiting for such an opportunity as this. But human, he had fallen in love with Tony, and time had passed, and Tony had fallen in love with him too. They had married, they had been happy, and Loki had given up (or so Tony thought) on dreaming about regaining his powers. 

But then Ultron had come, burning down all in his path, and Tony had received the blame. Locked up, guilty, he hadn't been able to talk Loki out of his plan. The God had wanted to prove his husband innocent, wanted to be the one to save the day, save Iron Man and the world and regain his godhood the way Thor had once, standing in front of a mortal and practically begging for death. Death had been given him, but he had been weighed and found wanting, for his reasons were selfish (he wanted forgiveness, fame, recognition) and Thor's had been pure. 

Tony was selfish too, and when Thor brought Loki's body back to Asgard by force Tony grabbed onto his arm and refused to let go. He watched his husband burn on his pyre, watched the smoke rise and clothing blacken as the air began to stink, but Tony did not leave like some of the others did; Tony did not look away. He watched, along with Frigga and Thor until the flames burnt out and there was nothing left but charred bones, until the servants collected them, laid them out in a fancily carved long boat and Odin pushed it into the water. It was carried out to sea, and over the waterfall and out of sight: only then did Tony turn his gaze back to the Asgardians that surrounded him. 

"This is your fault," he told Odin, who didn't even have the decency to flinch.

**XXX**


	7. The Hand That Signed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battle of the Five Armies. Asgard v everyone. Frost Giants. Fire Giants. War. Arranged Marriage. Minor character death. Jotun!Loki. Tyrant Odin.  
> The hand that signed the paper felled a city;  
> Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,  
> Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;  
> These five kings did a king to death.
> 
> The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,  
> The fingers' joints are cramped with chalk;  
> A goose's quill has put an end to murder  
> That put an end to talk.
> 
> The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,  
> And famine grew, and locusts came;  
> Great is the hand that holds dominion over  
> Man by a scribbled name.
> 
> The five kings count the dead but do not soften  
> The crusted wound nor stroke the brow;  
> A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;  
> Hands have no tears to flow. (Dylan Thomas)

Including it all, rather than just an exert, because it's a wonderful, moving poem.

 

 **Warnings:** Battle of the Five Armies. Asgard v everyone. Frost Giants. Fire Giants. War. Arranged Marriage. Minor character death. Jotun!Loki. Tyrant Odin.  
**Words:** 847  
**Chapter 7: The Hand That Signed**  
The second war between Jötunheimr and Asgard had always been imminent; it was only ever a matter of time before things spiraled out of control again. Perhaps it could have been averted for a few years longer had Laufey died as Loki intended him to. But the King had survived, tackled to the ground unexpectedly by one of his sons, killed in the giant's place. Býleistr had been knocked back, a smoking hole blown into his side, and Laufey had fought Loki beside the sleeping form of the Allfather as the injured Jötun bled to death. Frigga had tried to spare him, hands shaking as she fought to prevent a war, but the giant was cold to touch, ice inching across the ground upon where he lay and freezing the Queens skirts to her legs. 

Laufey had escaped, without his son; demanding satisfaction, the price of which was Loki's head. Odin had woken before Loki could use the Bifrost to destroy their enemies, having chosen to hide a day away as Thor burst into the chamber as Laufey fled. Thor had given chase, leaving Loki time to re-plan. 

With Laufey unsatisfied, Odin having for once listened to Loki's explanations, deciding that his crimes did not warrant an execution or a murder, he had declared war. Behind him had stood the fire giants of Musplheimr, Surtr at the head of his army with his eternal flame in one hand and the sword that had once almost burnt Asgard down in the other. The Vanir, with their puppet King who was Frigga's brother, readied their arms, responding only half eagerly to Asgard's call. Loki was left behind when they marched to war, untrusted by either side, and so kept under the watch of his mother, the one person all were sure he would never harm. Thor fought with bravery and spite, as did the Warriors Three, only Sif blamed Loki entirely rather than the Jötuns alone. 

Midgard became their battle ground. Buildings crumbled and cities burnt (or froze) as the war raged on. Some told stories of it lasting centuries, but in all it spanned just over a year before the peace treaty was signed. 

Odin revealed Loki's true heritage, and though Laufey did not care for the runt he had abandoned, his other son Helblindi had been killed by Thor and Loki was all the heirs he had left. So, instead of seeking Loki's head, he sought the boy himself; his bargain, to end the war. Thor, though not the brightest Asgardian around, was rather quick to propose an alliance by marriage between the warring nations, intending to marry Loki and bring him home while ending the war at last, but Laufey was not stupid either. 

Instead, he sent one of his nieces to Asgard, a smallish woman, pretty to other Frost Giants, but to Thor she was the most horrid person he had ever seen. Loki, Laufey kept close to his side for the duration of the wedding, terrified and blue, shaking under the grip of the giant fist around his bicep. 

Surtr agreed to the truce in return for Odin's promise never to interfere with his realm. Odin was quick to agree; too quick. But when Midgard was cleared of alien armies, and Asgard was flourishing once more, Odin was quick to ignore the pleas of Surtr as the frost giants, suffering from a famine in their own home, invaded Svartalfheimr and turned the planet to ice. Midgard was ravaged by disease, alien corpses in labs for study, bloated and rotten and infecting the humans with incurable diseases. 

Thor and his Jötun bride were unable to conceive, but Laufey would still not offer Loki up, not in return for anything, too cruel and too petty, but also in need of the only heir he had left. Jane had been killed during the war, one of a number of unfortunate casualties, but Pepper Potts had survived. Thor knew her to be honest and strong, a woman deserving of a warrior husband, and ignoring the protests of Anthony Stark, Odin took her for his son, replacing the old Queen with the new one and sending her head back to Laufey. 

The Vanir were not as prosperous as they once were. With Frigga's death, Odin stopped pretending to care about her brother. The puppet King of Vanaheimr was still too weak to fight back, and when hunger ravaged his lands he begged for help, like the fire giants had. But Odin only replied with the words of the peace agreement that they had all signed, which stipulated that the realm of Asgard was no longer allowed to interfere. And so Asgard prospered, and the four other realms were worse off than they had been during the war, but the Allfather cared little for the difficulties of those who dwelled outside his borders. 

They had their own Kings to take care of them. Those Kings should have thought harder of the consequences before going to war against Odin Warwolf, he told himself as he sat upon Hlidskjalf, watching them suffer.

**XXX**

Did these at the weekend, but it was hectic so only posting it now. Also... Met Tom Hiddleston last night, took a photo with him, got an autograph and he called me darling twice XD #walkingonair


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